The Good Wife Review: A House Made of Gingerbread

This week on The Good Wife, Zack and Grace lie in an attempt to keep Peter from jail, Alicia tries to keep a woman from deportation, and Will finds a possible new interest.

On last week’s episode Alicia stormed out of the apartment, and Peter followed her, sending off his house monitor alarm. This week, we see the event from Zach and Grace’s view, who heard their parents’ argument. While pondering a possible divorce, the children the sirens go off, and they try to cover up their dad’s absence. While Grace covers with the police on the phone, Zach rams into the monitoring device with his skateboard. The story: Peter was in the shower when Zach ran into the device sending it off. This they tell Alicia and Peter when they hurriedly return, in view of the apartment manager’s son, Amal, who saw all of this happen.

The police come and Zach and Grace give their story again, Amal backs it up and says that Peter was there the whole time. When Alicia left, she was on her way to that romantic dinner with Will, who calls from the restaurant but Alicia cancels. The dissappointed Will calls a female friend for companionship, but he is asked a favor instead.

The next morning finds the police questioning Amal. Alicia steps in and tells Amal’s mother to send them away. An hour later the mother is arrested. The police believe that Amal is involved in a ring of identity theft and is threatening to deport his mother if Amal doesn’t cooperate. Amal has to download three files from his bosses and give them to the police. Just as he does that someone tips them off, and the police catch the identity thieves as they are about to run.

The favor from a friend involves Will presiding over a mock court with law school students in the refreshing case of Hansel and Gretel. After “court” the lawyer for the defense comes to Will to find out what she is doing wrong that Will always rules against her. She asks Will for help, which he provides with tips on cross-examination. This proves a mistake as the defense uses this to show bias and gets Will recused from the case.

Gerald Kozco meets Alicia at the firm; he has another message for Peter. But Alicia doesn’t want to get involved and tells him to go away. At the house Alicia questions Peter about his involvement with Kozco and Childs. In the spirit of complete honesty, Peter admits that the legality of his relationship with Kozco was “fuzzy.” He also admits that he wants to get back into politics, but only if she is by his side.

In Amal’s case, the police were going after bigger fish: the buyers. They refuse to release Amal’s mother since, because of the tip-off, they can’t get anything more. But, no worries; identity theft is a family business and Amal’s sister is the go-between. She turns over the names of the buyers, and while she gets jail-time her mother is released.

At the office Will is visited by the mock defense lawyer Jada Cabrina. She brings him a gingerbread man and asks him to dinner. When he asks to think about it, she says she’ll wait then takes a seat.

 Overall, this was a pretty good episode and I like the introduction of the new character, Jada, to add some friction the the mix. I’m all about Alicia and Will, don’t get me wrong. But this new addition to the triangle ought to prove interesting. Will has been waiting patiently for Alicia, I think it’s time he got some adoration too. Let’s hope this finally pushes Alicia to make a decision. But then again, it’s probably far too early for that…

At the end, Alicia sees a news report on the television: Kozco is missing and assumed to have committed suicide.

Season 1, Episode 20: Mock (originally aired May 4, 2010)

For more on The Good Wife, click here.

Tuesday at 10/9c on CBS

Photos courtesy of CBS and David M. Russell.